in Rommany and English a very characteristic letter from a full-blood
Gipsy to a relative, which was dictated to me, and which gives a sketch
of the leading incidents of Gipsy life--trading in horses,
fortune-telling, and cock-shying. I have also given accounts of
conversations with Gipsies, introducing in their language and in English
their own remarks (noted down by me) on certain curious customs; among
others, on one which indicates that many of them profess among themselves
a certain regard for our Saviour, because His birth and life appear to
them to be like that of the Rommany. There is a collection of a number
of words now current in vulgar English which were probably derived from
Gipsy, such as row, shindy, pal, trash, bosh, and niggling, and finally a
number of _Gudli_ or short stories. These _Gudli_ have been regarded by
my literary friends as interesting and curious, since they are nearly all
specimens of a form of original narrative occupying a middle ground
between the anecdote and fable, and abounding in Gipsy traits. Some of
them are given word for word as they are current among Gipsies, and
others owe their existence almost entirely either to the vivid
imagination and childlike fancies of an old Gipsy assistant, or were
developed from some hint or imperfect saying or story. But all are
thoroughly and truly Rommany; for every one, after being brought into
shape, passed through a purely "unsophisticated" Gipsy mind, and was
finally declared to be _tacho_, or sound, by real Rommanis. The truth
is, that it is a difficult matter to hear a story among English Gipsies
which is not mangled or marred in the telling; so that to print it,
restitution and invention become inevitable. But with a man who lived in
a tent among the gorse and fern, and who intermitted his earnest
conversation with a little wooden bear to point out to me the gentleman
on horseback riding over the two beautiful little girls in the flowers on
the carpet, such fables as I have given sprang up of themselves, owing
nothing to books, though they often required the influence of a better